V. I. Lenin

Six Theses On TheImmediate Tasks Of The Soviet Government[1]

Written:Between April 30 and May 3,
    1918First Published:1918 in the pamphlet: N. LeninThe Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government,All-Russia C.E.C. Publishers; Published according to the text of the second edition of the pamphlet, 1918, collated with the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 27, pages 314-317Translated:Clemens Dutt; Edited by Robert DaglishTranscription/HTML Markup:David Walters & Robert CymbalaOnline Version:Lenin Internet ArchiveMarch, 2002

1. The international position of the Soviet Republic is extremely difficult
    and critical, because the deepest and fundamental interests of international capital and
    imperialism induce it to strive not only for a military onslaught on Russia, but also for an
    agreement on the partition of Russia and the strangulation of the Soviet power.

Only the intensification of the imperialist slaughter of the peoples in Western Europe and
    the imperialist rivalry between Japan and America in the Far East paralyse, or restrain,
    these aspirations, and then only partially, and only for a certain, probably short, time.

Therefore, the tactics of the Soviet Republic must be, on the one hand, to exert every
    effort to ensure the country’s speediest economic recovery, to increase its defence
    capacity, to build up a powerful socialist army; on the other hand, in international policy,
    the tactics must be those of manoeuvring, retreat, waiting for the moment when the
    international proletarian revolution—which is now maturing more quickly than before in
    a number of advanced countries—fully matures.

2. In the sphere of domestic policy, the task that comes to the forefront at the present
    time in conformity with tho resolution adopted by the All-Russia Congress of Soviets on March
    15, 1918, is the task of organisation. It is this task, in connection with the new and higher
    organisation of production and distribution on the basis of socialised large-scale machine
    (labour) production, that constitutes the chief content—and chief condition of complete
    victory —of the socialist revolution that was begun in Russia on October 25, 1917.

3. From the purely political point of view, the essence of the present situation is that
    the task of convincing the working people of Russia that the programme of the socialist
    revolution is correct and the task of winning Russia from the exploiters for the working
    people have, in main and fundamental outline, been carried out, and the chief problem that
    comes to the forefront now is—how to administer Russia. The organisation of proper
    administration, the undeviating fulfilment of the decisions of the Soviet
    government—this is the urgent task of the Soviets, this is the condition for the
    complete victory of the Soviet type of state, which it is not enough to proclaim in formal
    decrees, which it is not enough to establish and introduce in all parts of the country, but
    which must also be practically organised and tested in the course of the regular, everyday
    work of administration.

4. In the sphere of the economic building of socialism, the essence of the present
    situation is that our work of organising the country-wide and all-embracing accounting and
    control of production and distribution, and of introducing proletarian control of production,
    lags far behind the direct expropriation of the expropriators—the land owners and
    capitalists. This is the fundamental fact deter mining our tasks.

From this it follows, on the one hand, that the struggle against the bourgeoisie is
    entering a new phase, namely: the centre of gravity is shifting to the organisation of
    accounting and control. Only in this way is it possible to consolidate all the economic
    achievements directed against capital, all the measures in nationalising individual branches
    of the national economy that we have carried out since October; and only in this way is it
    possible to prepare for the successful consummation of the struggle against the bourgeoisie,
    i.e., the complete consolidation of socialism.

From this basic fact follows, on the other hand, the explanation as to why the Soviet
    government was obliged in certain cases to take a step backward, or to agree to compromise
    with bourgeois tendencies. Such a step backward and departure from the principles of the
    Paris Commune was,

for example, the introduction of high salaries for a number of bourgeois experts. Such a
    compromise was the agreement with the bourgeois co-operatives concerning steps and measures
    for gradually bringing the entire population into the co-operatives. Compromises of this kind
    will be necessary until the proletarian government has put country-wide control and
    accounting firmly on its feet; and our task is, while not in the least concealing their
    unfavourable features from the people, to exert efforts to improve accounting and control as
    the only means and method of completely eliminating all compromises of this kind. Compromises
    of this kind are needed at the present time as the sole (because we are late with accounting
    and control) guarantee of slower, but surer progress. When the accounting and control of
    production and distribution is fully introduced the need for such compromises will
    disappear.

5. Particular significance now attaches to measures for raising labour discipline and the
    productivity of labour. Every effort must be exerted for the steps already undertaken in this
    direction, especially by the trade unions, to be sustained, consolidated and increased. This
    includes, for example, the introduction of piece-work, the adoption of much that is
    scientific and progressive in the Taylor system, the payment of wages commensurate with the
    general results of the work of a factory, the exploitation of rail and water transport, etc.
    This also includes the organisation of competition between individual producers’ and
    consumers’ communes, selection of organisers, etc.

6. The proletarian dictatorship is absolutely indispensable during the transition from
    capitalism to socialism, and in our revolution this truth has been fully confirmed in
    practice. Dictatorship, however, presupposes a revolutionary government that is really firm
    and ruthless in crushing both exploiters and hooligans, and our government is too mild.
    Obedience, and unquestioning obedience at that, during work to the one-man decisions of
    Soviet directors, of the dictators elected or appointed by Soviet institutions, vested with
    dictatorial powers (as is demanded, for example, by the railway decree), is far, very far
    from being guaranteed as yet. This is the effect of the influence of petty-bourgeois anarchy,
    the anarchy of small-proprietor habits, aspirations and sentiments, which fundamentally
    contradict proletarian discipline and socialism. The proletariat must concentrate all its
    class-consciousness on the task of combating this petty-bourgeois anarchy, which is not only
    directly apparent (in the support given by the bourgeoisie and their hangers-on, the
    Mensheviks, Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, etc., to every kind of resistance to the
    proletarian government), but also indirectly apparent (in the historical vacillation
    displayed on the major questions of policy by both the petty-bourgeois Left
    Socialist-Revolutionaries and the trend in our Party called “Left Communist”,
    which descends to the methods of petty-bourgeois revolutionariness and copies the Left
    Socialist-Revolutionaries).

Iron discipline and the thorough exercise of proletarian dictatorship against
    petty-bourgeois vacillation—this is the general and summarising slogan of the
    moment.

[1]Six Theses on the Immediate
    Tasks of the Soviet Governmentwere written by Lenin on instructions of the All-Russia
    C.E.C. after his report on the immediate tasks of the Soviet government had been discussed at
    a meeting of the All-Russia C.E.C. on April 29, 1918. Lenin’s theses were unanimously
    approved by the Party Central Committee on May 3, and on May 4 the Presidium of the
    All-Russia C.E.C. sent them out to the local Soviets with a circular letter stating that
    Lenin’s theses “should form the basis of the work of all Soviets”.